A preliminary nuclear-powered design was to be boosted from parking orbit by a fluorine/hydrazine upper stage. This was abandoned by 1973, and the final KAUR-3 bus design was a conventional solar-powered platform boosted by a Block DM liquid oxygen/kerosene upper stage. Test flights in 1976-1980 were followed by operational versions that provided television service throughout the vast extent of the Soviet Union.

Work began in the late 1960's and the first design used exotic and dangerous technologies. The satellite was to have been boosted into orbit by the Proton launch vehicle with a new high performance upper stage using Fluorine/Hydrazine propellants. The satellite itself was to be powered by a 5 kW nuclear reactor.

Following a review at the VAKR-1971 seminar in 1971 the nuclear reactor was abandoned. The exotic upper stage, which reached cold flow tests at the Energomash facility in 1973, was also finally abandoned due to the toxic results of any launch vehicle failure on the pad.

The KAUR-3 spacecraft bus finally developed was 3-axis stabilized to within 0.25 degrees of the earth's center using liquid propellant micro-engines. The single-unit body was equipped with solar panels, active liquid-gas phase-change thermoregulation system, and a corrective engine unit for making orbital adjustments. 25 square meters of solar panels provided 1280 W of power.

In the first half of the 1970's the Ekran (Statsionar T) system was completed for color central television broadcast to Siberia and the Far North. The first Ekran was launched on 26 October 1976, 27 months after the experimental Molniya 1S, the first Soviet geostationary test. The first flights used experimental satellites, but they already allowed 18 to 20 million additional Soviet citizens to see the Central Television program.

Operations were delayed due to continuing problems with the Proton launch vehicle. This only had a 20% reliability in 1969, with only 5 of 8 launches being successful in 1976. It was difficult to solve the problem; every failure came in a different system of the vehicle.

Ekran featured a 12 square meter phased array antenna, operating at 702-726 MHz at 2 kW power. Flight trials continued to 1980 before the system was accepted for service. The satellite broadcast 12 to 16 hours of television programming daily. By 1982 3000 receivers were in operation.

Proton The Proton launch vehicle has been the medium-lift workhorse of the Soviet and Russian space programs for over forty years. Although constantly criticized within Russia for its use of toxic and ecologically-damaging storable liquid propellants, it has out-lasted all challengers, and no replacement is in sight. More...

Associated Launch Vehicles

Proton The Proton launch vehicle has been the medium-lift workhorse of the Soviet and Russian space programs for over forty years. Although constantly criticized within Russia for its use of toxic and ecologically-damaging storable liquid propellants, it has out-lasted all challengers, and no replacement is in sight. Development of the Proton began in 1962 as a two-stage vehicle that could be used to launch large military payloads or act as a ballistic missile with a 100 megaton nuclear warhead. The ICBM was cancelled in 1965, but development of a three-stage version for the crash program to send a Soviet man around the moon began in 1964. The hurried development caused severe reliability problems in early production. But these were eventually solved, and from the 1970's the Proton was used to launch all Russian space stations, medium- and geosynchronous orbit satellites, and lunar and planetary probes. More...

Proton-K/DM Russian orbital launch vehicle. The original four stage Proton / Block D configuration was used until 1976, at which time it was replaced by a modernised version equipped with N2O4/UDMH verniers for precise placement of payloads in geosynchronous orbit and its own self-contained guidance unit. This was accepted into military service in 1978 with the first Raduga launch. The stage was first developed for launch of gesynchronous military communications and early warning satellites (Raduga, Ekran, Gorizont, Potok, SPRN). Its later versions continue in use for launch of MEO and geosynchronous comsats, and was Russia's most successful commercial launcher. More...

Baikonur Russia's largest cosmodrome, the only one used for manned launches and with facilities for the larger Proton, N1, and Energia launch vehicles. The spaceport ended up on foreign soil after the break-up of Soviet Union. The official designations NIIP-5 and GIK-5 are used in official Soviet histories. It was also universally referred to as Tyuratam by both Soviet military staff and engineers, and the US intelligence agencies. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union the Russian Federation has insisted on continued use of the old Soviet 'public' name of Baikonur. In its Kazakh (Kazak) version this is rendered Baykonur. More...

Unified System of Satellite Communications (YeSSS) - .
Nation: USSR. Spacecraft: Molniya-2; Ekran; Raduga. Central Committee of the Communist Party and Council of Soviet Ministers Decree 'On use of Molniya and Ekran for a unified satellite communications system' was issued. The YeSSS was defined as the Molniya-2 in elliptical orbit and Raduga (Statsionar) in geosynchronous orbit.